One thing you get from a pain-in-the-ass head cold is a good excuse to skip early-morning workouts. I laid in bed this morning, scanning the news and listening to the foghorns on the far-away lake; apparently some warm air is in our forecast, and it was already making things murky on the water. Then I picked up my iPad and learned Kari Lake, the new head of Voice of America, has found a “content provider” to fill the VOA airwaves now that she’s fired the whole staff.
One America News. It is to weep.
I’m old enough to remember when Radio Free Europe was something a different America was so proud of it created ads to tell other Americans about. Like this one. I found it while searching for a similar one I remember: A peasant family in a gray hovel, babushkas on the women, everyone huddled around the probably-forbidden radio, one ear cocked to its speaker and the other listening for storm troopers outside, as the voice on it speaks in a foreign language, and then: “ze Drifters…on Broadvay.” The music from the tinny speaker washes over the faces, and you’re there with them, imagining these beaten-down people hearing this song about faraway America, not understanding it, but somehow understanding anyway. It was…stirring, in the best way.
Now, they’ll get Matt Gaetz and Chanel Rion. Man, this country. Such a steep slide.
What else is going on? The conclave! :::makes cheering-crowd sounds::: Perhaps you’ve heard about Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, one of the conclave. His name alone has made him a great favorite in St. Peter’s Square, at least among the Americans, who find it amusing. What I don’t find amusing? This:
Jerusalem CNN — Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, cuts an unmistakable figure in the dark corridors of the ancient, stone patriarchate in this troubled corner of the world. He moves quickly, in long, deliberate strides, the seams of his black cassock billowing like a swimmer’s stroke ahead of his arrival.
Block that metaphor! Sounds like someone at CNN recently attended a How to Write Good seminar, and took the wrong lesson home.
OK, my biggest deadline of the last couple weeks is behind me, but more remain, so I gotta skedaddle. Happy hump day, all.
susan said on May 7, 2025 at 11:13 am
Funny you should bring up VOA. “On the Media” just dropped the first episode of The Divided Dial, about shortwave radio, VOA, and Radio Free Europe, Fishing in the Night —— which is also about the emergence of right-wing radio.
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Jeff Borden said on May 7, 2025 at 12:00 pm
Everything these knobs do benefits Putin and Xi. It’s so obvious to all but the cult.
There’s a Page One story in the NYT that’s really heartbreaking. It’s about a guy who sells cheap used cars in Lawton, Oklahoma and how the tariffs are squeezing him dry. He sells to people with no credit, often working low-paying jobs and paying in cash to avoid credit card fees. Like his customers, the guy is poor and struggling as his costs increase. Just a poignant microcosm of the damage our demented preznit and our cowardly Congress are doing.
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alex said on May 7, 2025 at 1:31 pm
Billowing cassocks and bloviating blowhards. I’m beginning to wonder if those end times idiots are actually making it happen.
Gonna go toil in the garden to get my mind off this shit.
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Suzanne said on May 7, 2025 at 2:04 pm
Alex, you’ve got it. These end times evangelicals want the world to blow up so Jesus will return and make the world his kingdom…or so they think. It would be ok to watch if they weren’t going to blow us all up with it. Other than abortion, gender stuff, and feminism in the here & now, their biggest concern is the afterlife and since they believe heaven will be full of people just like them, they are pumped for it to happen sooner rather than later. They may say they believe in an all powerful, omniscient God but they also believe he needs some help bringing about the end times they dream of. So off they confidently go!
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Sherri said on May 7, 2025 at 4:54 pm
I was wondering earlier today where were our pane et circenses, our bread and circuses, that if we’re going to have to put up with an emperor, we’re supposed to get a dole and entertainment out of it. Well, too bad on the dole, but it occurs to me that this emperor’s version of circuses is the right wing victimization reality show, airing nightly on Fox News and the like.
Like the fencer who took a knee rather than fence a transgender fencer in a meaningless tournament for mediocre fencers. Never mind that the weekend before, this same fencer had fenced in a co-ed tournament and had fenced against men without issue, winning some and losing some. Facing a transgender fencer was too scary for her, and got her lots of opportunities in right-wing media, something her fencing was never going to get her.
Or the Minnesota mom caught on video calling a 5 year old child the n-word. She’s now raised over $700K on the “Christian” version of Gofundme, GiveSendGo, though GiveSendGo did have to disable comments on her fundraisers because the comments were so racist they didn’t look so Christian.
Dems, I’ve got a clue for you. This shit isn’t happening because we’re too woke or any other such nonsense. Right-wingers have agency, too. They aren’t doing this because we make them do it, they’re doing it because they want to do it. Trying to come up with magic words that will appeal to them will not work, because this is who they are and who they want to be.
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David C said on May 7, 2025 at 5:41 pm
In my experience, the more Christian someone is the more they fear dying. I don’t know why they want all the chaos so Jesus would come have a visit. The atheists and agnostics I know aren’t so afraid of dying. They’re no to keen on the process of dying, but see death as a long peaceful sleep.
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Mark P said on May 7, 2025 at 5:58 pm
These evangelicals are so stupid and ignorant about their own religion. The Bible doesn’t say anything about that kind of belief. It’s all a stupid idea they get out of Revelations because they have no idea what Revelations was about. It’s too bad they will be too dead to know.
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Sherri said on May 7, 2025 at 6:25 pm
I’d say that evangelical ideas about the Rapture and the Second Coming owed more to the Left Behind series than to Revelations (and to The Late Great Planet Earth before that.) But yes, in general, evangelicals who believe the Bible is literally true are not so much into the symbolism of an apocalyptic book. Now, when the literalism is inconvenient, that’s another story…
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Sherri said on May 7, 2025 at 10:18 pm
So, RFKJr says that vaccines aren’t tested against placebo, which is just a lie, because every vaccine has been tested against placebo. Oh, but he thinks that placebo should be saline, not the inert ingredients in the vaccine, which would defeat the point of the test, but he knows shit about science, and besides, he thinks it’s those inert ingredients that are the problem.
But, rather than those harmful inert ingredients in the vaccine, he’s happy to sell you supplements, which, guess what? Have never been tested against placebo! And can contain anything, regardless of what’s on the label! That’s sure to make you healthier than a vaccine!
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Sherri said on May 8, 2025 at 12:02 am
Who knew that you needed DEI to land jets on carriers?
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Sherri said on May 8, 2025 at 1:06 am
This is probably more than you ever wanted to know about commercial real estate, but it’s a good answer to the question of why spaces will sit empty for so long, even years, when the Econ 101 solution says, just lower the rent. Lowering the rent forces foreclosure because commercial real estate is a financial product, not a building.
https://open.substack.com/pub/postsuburban/p/why-do-commercial-spaces-sit-vacant?r=2h24&utm_medium=ios
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Jeff Gill said on May 8, 2025 at 8:30 am
David C, I think it’s a range. As a minister & believer myself, I could wish anyone who claimed the identity of Christian would show more of the marks of faith, which a reliable source defines as “Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self-Control…” Humility and compassion are fairly well established goals, too. My pastoral challenge has always been trying to figure out the faith of people who are mostly testy, unpleasant, and anxious. Sometimes I would learn there are reasons; the old “hurt people hurt people.” But I’ve been tested in showing compassion to more than a few fellow adherents, I’ll admit.
Meanwhile, think about how you’ve changed over the last 37 years. Or have you? It’s an interesting exercise. Then watch Oprah do this interview in . . . 1988.
https://youtu.be/SEPs17_AkTI
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alex said on May 8, 2025 at 8:39 am
My dad was in the commercial real estate development business, and leading up to his retirement in 1991, the portfolio he managed increasingly included vacant buildings that were intentionally kept vacant. These were tax shelters and the write-offs you could get from the vacancies were worth more to the owners than the rent. I think Congress eventually closed this loophole, but if you ever wondered why so many unnecessary shopping centers and office buildings went up during the ’80s and ’90s, that’s why.
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alex said on May 8, 2025 at 9:07 am
After seeing that Oprah segment, I am happy to say that I never had a zero-sum understanding of the world, not even 37 years ago. The man is just plain stupid, with his mental development arrested at the level of a 7-year-old playground bully, and he no business interfering in the world’s economics and politics.
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Jeff Gill said on May 8, 2025 at 9:19 am
The fact that he was basically mentored by Roy Cohn from age 25 to 31 explains so much. In the Oprah interview, Cohn’s been dead two years, and Trump is “fully formed” . . . even more obviously now than it was back in 2016-2020.
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Mark P said on May 8, 2025 at 11:08 am
I saw some video of Trump talking about his golf resort in Scotland back around 2006. He was clearly the same person then that he is now, a braggart, a liar, and a bully, with a limited vocabulary.
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Scout said on May 8, 2025 at 12:25 pm
White smoke from the Vatican, just announced.
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Deborah said on May 8, 2025 at 1:27 pm
Holy cow, the new Pope was born in Chicago!
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Deborah said on May 8, 2025 at 1:35 pm
The jokes on Bluesky are hilarious, the best one so far “deep dish communion wafers”.
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ROGirl said on May 8, 2025 at 1:38 pm
Pope Bob.
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Icarus said on May 8, 2025 at 2:09 pm
and Merlot for the blood of Christ.
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Icarus said on May 8, 2025 at 2:28 pm
^^ should be Malort.
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Jeff Gill said on May 8, 2025 at 2:45 pm
It’s official, putting ketchup on a hot dog is now a sin.
(Swiped from someone on Bluesky.)
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Deborah said on May 8, 2025 at 2:57 pm
I’m surprised the bells at Holy Name Cathedral a few blocks from here weren’t ringing like crazy, non stop. That was Al Capones church historically across from his “flower shop”. Maybe they were, but I didn’t hear it.
Haven’t seen anything saying specifically where Pope Leo grew up in Chicago?
edit: I looked it up, it was south suburban Chicago, near Dolton? Which probably made him a Sox fan.
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Sherri said on May 8, 2025 at 3:00 pm
The pope news will overshadow everything today, but Bill Gates announced that he’s giving 99% of his fortune to his foundation, and more interesting, that his foundation will end in 2045. The Gates Foundation was never planned to last in perpetuity, but was originally going to sunset twenty years after his death.
Billionaires are still a policy failure, because Bill Gates by himself should not be deciding what’s important to solve, but at least he’s trying to use his billions to solve real problems in global health, not self-aggrandizing problems of Mars colonization.
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Heather said on May 8, 2025 at 4:12 pm
Chicago Pope!
This means baptisms can now be wet or dipped.
Ketchup shall be prohibited at the Vatican.
Calling it “Willis Tower” is grounds for excommunication.
Parishioners can save their seats for mass with dibs.
Communion wine shall be replaced with Malort.
The Tiber shall be dyed green every St. Patrick’s Day.
“And also wit’ youse.”
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Deborah said on May 8, 2025 at 4:55 pm
Maybe everyone else is getting tired of it but I’m loving the Chicago Pope jokes. Keep them coming.
On a completely different note, I’m going back to NM next Sunday, the 18th. I’m not looking forward to flying, not because I’m concerned about safety, but I’m expecting delays and scheduling issues thanks to the FAA issues. Sigh.
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Suzanne said on May 8, 2025 at 5:03 pm
From Bluesky re: announcing new pope—
“Pizzabella can still win if Mike Pence has the courage.”
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Jakash said on May 8, 2025 at 5:04 pm
A fine selection of Chicago-style jokes to celebrate the new Pope.
Meanwhile, I’ll ask for absolution, as I uncharitably nitpick Deborah’s remark about Al Capone @24.
The flower shop was not owned by him, but *was* co-owned by Dean O’Banion, a competing mobster, whom Capone arranged to have murdered there. O’Banion attended Holy Name and had sung in its choir as a youth.
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Deborah said on May 8, 2025 at 5:17 pm
Jakash, I bow to your superior Chicago mob knowledge.
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kayak woman said on May 8, 2025 at 7:36 pm
I heard today that the current head of the Federal Aviation Administration thinks he can modernize the system in FOUR YEARS! Nope. Especially if your current system is still using floppy disks. Jeebus. I have worked for an online banking development team for 18 years. 15 of those years (plus a few before I was employed there) were spent CAREFULLY moving our application from MS-DOS type technology to a web application. Testing, testing, testing. We used to say, “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” These kinds of changes take time and money.
And I’m talking about banking, which can wreak havoc in many ways but nobody falls out of the sky.
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Jakash said on May 8, 2025 at 7:44 pm
Oh, I don’t know all that much about the mob stuff; just a few of the major incidents. I found the choir part at Wikipedia, when I was trying to make sure I wasn’t wrong.
But you make a good point, Deborah. I hadn’t thought about it, but it is kinda surprising that *all* the Catholic church bells in Chicago weren’t ringing long and loud today. I didn’t notice any, either.
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Mark P said on May 8, 2025 at 8:07 pm
Don’t worry, kayak woman, Elon’s AI will get it done by next year. And it will be full self driving.
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